


The Galaxy in a Macaron

by Irrelevancy



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Families of Choice, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M, Multi, Other, Queer Families, Queerplatonic Relationships, San Francisco Bay Area, Social Justice, Trans Character, non-binary Lafayette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Mulligan found the kid Saturday morning at the farmer's market.</i><br/>AU in which Hercules Mulligan runs a café that employs disenfranchised youths in need, Lafayette works there, everybody else is a regular, and Alex suffers the evils of gentrification. Queerplatonic relationships and love for everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The (bastard) (orphan) immigrant

**Author's Note:**

> This is my shameless indulgence!fic, where nobody messes up, everybody loves everybody and no one gets hurt.
> 
> When Lafayette speaks in italics, it's French.

_Berkeley, CA_  

Mulligan found the kid Saturday morning at the farmer’s market. Sofia from the citrus stall was gleefully feeding him persimmon slices, and the kid scarfed each one down with relish.

 “ _¡Hércules!_ ” Sofia waved him over. “ _Ven aquí._ You’ve got to meet Alex!”

The kid, _Alex_ , turned a gaze on Mulligan, surprisingly sharp and a bit too intense, probably, for eight thirty in the AM. Mulligan reached past him for the pears— at least two of the Schuyler sisters were guaranteed to show today, so he’d make the pear yeasted sugar cake they were so fond of.

“What’s up with you?” Mulligan asked, not unfriendly. But if the kid turned out to be one of the many _bohemians_ and _free souls_ that congregated at the Bay, Mulligan hadn’t the patience or time to spend googling locations of dispensaries for him.

“I just moved here, flew in to SFO this morning. I was going to find a place to stay in San Francisco and attend community college or State University but the apartment I had lined up bailed on me. And the landlord laughed at me, you know, told me the only place I could afford to live with the money I had was West Oakland or Richmond, and I should get my head out of my ass. So I punched him, and got on BART, and fell asleep from the jetlag I guess, and next thing I knew I was here.” 

His hands having paused in grabbing limes, Mulligan slanted a look at Sofia, who just made a delighted face and a series of gestures meant to indicate, _Do you believe this kid?!_ And Mulligan tossed his head back in a booming laugh.

“Well that’s gentrification for you, kid! Sorry to hear it!”

“My name is Alexander Hamilton,” the kid scowled, “I’m not a kid.”

“Oh, my bad,” Mulligan snorted as he pulled out his wallet to pay. “Alexander Hamilton, an _adult_ who is up shit creek without a paddle.”

“Yes, I—” Alex’s words stumbled, and his cheeks colored. “I gotta admit, I don’t really know what to do.”

“Where’d you move from?”

“St. Croix.”

“Hot damn,” Mulligan whistled. “Guess I can’t tell you to just move back down to your mama’s place in the O.C. Well the way I see it, Alexander Hamilton, you have two options.” He blew Sofia a parting kiss and started towards the beekeepers’ stall. Alex followed, his backpack almost as tall as he was bouncing behind him— good. “One, you give up on this ‘Murrican dream now and hitchhike up to Canada.” 

“Do you know how long I’ve been planning this though? I figured it out, one year at a public university, then another two at—”

“Option _two_ ,” Mulligan interrupted, reaching out to grab Alex’s shoulder when the kid made to keep walking past the jars of honey. Stefan, behind the stall, gave him a quick wave before turning back to another customer. Baby Ada, in her little cradle next to the packaged honeycombs, yelled happy nonsense when Mulligan wiggled his fingers at her. Alex jumped, watched the baby like one watched a clogged sink on the verge of overflowing. Smacking him lightly in the shoulder, Mulligan continued, “Option two, you come work at my café and I pay you in room and board while you figure out what to do.”

“I— What?” For a moment, Alexander completely froze, like he was pouring so much effort into his thoughts that he could expense none for the rest of his body. What a strange, yet simple guy. With a little grin, Mulligan left him to it. He had honey to purchase.

A minute later, Mulligan tucking three jars into his bag, Alex grabbed his elbow, with force, but simultaneously hesitant. He had on quite an expression too— terrified, but wide-eyed— a very specific expression that arose from knowing only a shitty life and disbelief when something finally goes right. Mulligan was quite familiar, and felt his heart tug a little for the kid.

“You really mean it?” When Alex’s voice lilted up in a painfully hope-filled question, it made his youth all the more apparent. Strangely enough, Mulligan’s first thought was, _he has a good voice,_ and then, _Lafayette would like it._ Lafayette was always calling dibs on the café speakers and sampling every genre the world had to offer— all their favored songs, though, featured powerhouse or otherwise strange and memorable vocals. Alex’s voice had the substance of an orator— a child preacher, perhaps.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, man,” was Mulligan’s gruff reply. He blew a raspberry at Baby Ada before turning away, and Alex, gangly and awkward, half-waved half-bowed at the infant. “But hey, no pressure. You don’t have to make any promises or nothing, just come over and see for yourself. Have lunch on me.”

“You really don’t have to—”

“Least I can do by way of apologizing for our shitty city.” With a snort, Mulligan gestured a direction with his head, both hands weighed down with groceries. Stumbling off the curb, Alex followed, looking left and right as vendors called out their goodbyes to Mulligan. The kid cleared his throat.

“So… Hercules Mulligan?”

“I need no introduction,” Mulligan snickered. “Call me whatever you want, as long as it’s not _Milly—_ god bless Auntie Lucy’s soul and may she rest in peace and all that, but for real, no Milly. There’s nothing worse”

“Okay, um, Mister Mulligan—”

“Christ kid, I’m only twenty-nine—”

“ _Mulligan_ then.” The kid had the gall to sound annoyed already, making Mulligan laugh. He’ll be alright. “I’m being serious here— can you please explain? Are you seriously doing this solely out of the kindness of your heart?”

“…It’s really not as sketch as it sounds,” Mulligan grudgingly admitted. He shamelessly enjoyed making the ambiguous, shady offers, letting his conversation partners draw their own conclusions. It was a method he oft employed in many avenues of his life, and has always been rewarded with secrets and great blackmail information. “The café I manage is part of a social welfare program that employs halfway folks who need an immediate source of income. It’s all legit, I swear. I can show you certifications and all that, but I figured it’ll be easier if you just talk to Lafayette.”

“Lafayette?”

Jogging through an empty intersection despite the red light, Mulligan grinned and nodded his head toward the end of the street.

“There it is, my pride and joy.”

Out of his peripherals, Mulligan saw Alex jerk to a stop right before he stepped onto the curb, taking in the sign, partly hidden behind luscious drapes of wisteria.

“…Your café…” Alex said slowly (for the first time since Mulligan’s met the kid’s rapid fire mouth). “It’s named The Boston Tea Party?”

“I believe that’s what it says, yeah.”

“…Do you sell tea?” 

“ _Hell_ no, what kind of establishment do you think I’m running here?” 

The loud bell chimes as Mulligan pushed the door open drowned out Alex’s response, but Mulligan could swear he heard Alex mutter _Americans!_ with an incredulous shake of his head. The lights were off and the blinds still drawn, but Mulligan could see the dim kitchen lights behind the counter. He flipped on the café lights, then called out in his booming shopkeeper’s voice, “ _Lafayette!_ ”

Loud clunks of ceramic against tile, glass against stone (which did not bode well), and a torrent of French cussing. Alex, following cautiously behind Mulligan, perked up in interest as Lafayette poked their head out, blinking owlishly.

“What the hell are you doing back there?”

“ _Madame Teresa_ gave me flowers,” they replied, holding up a huge bouquet stuffed haphazardly into a vase. Mulligan gestured, and Lafayette obligingly put the vase down on the counter for Mulligan to fix. “I come in early to pot them, _I thought they’d be good decoration._ ”

“ _You speak French?_ ” Alex piped up. Lafayette’s whole face lit up in joy.

“ _Immigrated here two months ago, just call me Lafayette— who are you?”_

 _“My name is Alexander Hamilton, hello._ ” 

“Alex needs somewhere to stay,” Mulligan explained. “Landlord screwed him.”

“ _Crap, that’s awful,_ ” Lafayette grimaced sympathetically, but quickly grew chipper again. “Stay here, no? Hercules says yes?”

“It’s up to Hamilton,” Mulligan shrugged. “But in the meantime, I’ll fix up food. Here—” He reached into his bag for the honey and tossed the jars through the air at Lafayette, who deftly caught them. “—make up the custard, will you? Nutmeg’s behind the squirrel.”

“Let me help,” Alex jumped in. He let his backpack slip off his shoulders and shoved it in a corner, looking determinedly between Mulligan and Lafayette. “I haven’t decided whether or not to stay yet, but if you’ll feed me it’s the least I can do.”

“ _Do you have experience baking?”_  

“ _Not in the least. My talents lie more in the craft of writing._ ”

“I will teach you then.” Grinning, Lafayette gently shoved a jar of honey into Alex’s hand and guided him back into the kitchen. “Hercules will make sandwiches, _the best you’ll ever have._ ”

“Any dietary restrictions?” Mulligan called, emptying the contents of one bag— fresh focaccia, mozzarella, tomatoes on vine. Neither he nor Lafayette was a strict vegetarian, but both tried to keep their money out of the larger meat industry. That went for the café’s dining options as well. He absently reached behind him for the cutting board, only to find it delivered sharply into his hand by Alex.

“No,” was Alex’s response. Then, feet shuffling, “um, thank you. So much.”

“We will take care of you,” Lafayette murmured softly behind him.

“What he said.” Mulligan grinned, and ruffled Alex’s hair with a widespread palm, getting a little flour in the dark strands. Alex made a noise of protest, but was grinning into the collar of his jacket. “And hey— welcome to America.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the General!

The first customer came in the middle of Mulligan’s passionate lecture about the types of flowers from Mrs. Teresa’s flower shop on the other side of the block (he had divvied up the green mums and placed them with the freesias and the roses got little square vases to themselves, each centered among a spread of fern—). After making up the custard as Mulligan asked (the “squirrel,” as it turned out, was a squirrel-shaped novelty plant pot on the windowsill), they had been called out to a beautifully-plated lunch of sandwiches and salad. Hamilton had already polished off the two halves of his sandwich, and Lafayette was trying to sneak one of their halves onto Alex’s plate when the bells chimed, loud and obnoxious.

“…I wish you’d fix that,” came an aggrieved voice from the doorway. And in a moment of sheer surrealism, Lafayette launched themselves over the counter, palms pressed between the plates and their feet with their unmatched socks swinging clear through the air. Alex barely had time to process, much less move away from the elbow that was all but a hair’s breath away from his nose. Feet hitting the ground (Mulligan groaned, _I’ve told you a million times Gil, you gotta wear shoes in the kitchen_ ), Lafayette sprinted forward until they tackled the newcomer around the waist.

“ _Good morning_!” And, “Good morning!” 

“Good morning to you too, Lafayette,” said the customer with only a slight smile on his solemn, stately features— but when Alex looked closer, his eyes were warm. “How are you today?” 

“We received a present,” Lafayette laughed, pulling the customer forward and avidly gesturing toward Alexander. Alex, some decade-old book on American etiquette in mind, jumped to his feet and offered his hand, which the man shook firmly. And he very nearly bowed, but Lafayette was kind enough to poked him in the shoulder before he could.

“Alexander Hamilton,” he introduced himself, “nice to meet you sir.”

“George Washington,” was the response. “Pleasure to meet you son.”

“Alex speaks French,” Lafayette stated, sliding their sandwich in front of Alex with a slightly goofy grin. Above them, Mulligan had stood up, clasping Washington warmly on the shoulder in greeting. “Alex, _Washington’s one of the best men in the world, you will love him._ ”

“Your usual?” Mulligan asked, sounding strangely giddy, and moving toward the espresso machine with the most glee Alex has ever seen in a 6’5” man built like a linebacker.

“Please,” Washington confirmed, shifting his very professional-looking briefcase from one hand to the other in order to press a five into Lafayette’s hand. Lafayette obediently took it to the register. $3.50, and the change clattered into the tip jar. “What do you have in store for me today?”

“A _zebra_.”

As they rung Washington up for the drink, Lafayette got Alex’s attention with a click of their tongue, tipping their head to gesture at Mulligan. “ _Go watch,_ ” they instructed, “ _this is his art._ ”

Alex needed no further prompting. Quickly scarfing down the last of the sandwiches and gulping some water, Alex circled around the counter to the customer’s side, standing beside Washington to watch just as two shots of espresso finished with a hiss and gurgle from the machine. Mulligan had rinsed out and dried a large mug with the American flag on it, which, being hand-painted, managed to look more like a solemn statement than kitsch. Catching Alex’s eyes, Mulligan gave the mug a little toss.

“This is the General’s mug,” he said. It’s only after seeing Washington’s eyes roll that Alex understood he was referring to Washington. “We gotta be environmentally conscious, and this good man conveniently works next door, so he gets a mug of his own.”

“If you stick around, you’ll be seeing a lot of me, I’m afraid,” Washington told Alex. He pulled out his wallet then and extracted a business card, handing it over. Taking it with nervous hands and inexplicable gratitude at this small gesture of formality, Alex read the card: _Mt. Vernon Community Center. George Washington, Youth Counselor, Academic Advisor._

“Alright, you ready for this?”

Washington and Alex both obediently turned their attention back to Mulligan, who now held the tin pitcher of steamed milk in one hand and the mug with espresso in the other. Lafayette too had made their way over, peeking over Mulligan’s shoulder but careful to stay out of his light. There’s a moment of breath, silence becoming opaque with anticipation, before the stillness broke with the motion and sound of a bicycle wheel free-spinning. And deftly, Mulligan poured, milk and froth, in a precise choreography of cup spins and flicks of his wrist. Alex watched, absolutely stunned, as Mulligan illustrated an honest to god _zebra_ in the latte foam.

“ _What did I tell you?_ ” was Lafayette’s giddy whisper. “ _Art._ ”

And yes, the latte art was astonishing— but what really got Alex’s heart pounding, his nerve endings buzzing all the way down to his toes was _Mulligan._ By God, Alex already loved this man— this incredible man with artistry and showmanship in the gentle slope of his broad shoulders, the unabashed luster of passion in the glowing focus of his eyes. This morning Alex had walked guardedly behind him, hand clutching the cheap mobile in his pocket, 911 already dialed and ready to send, and now Alex could find no part of himself willing to walk out the doors of this café. At least, not without clear intent to return again, and again, and again and again. The whole-body thrill that came with first entering America had rapidly dissipated due to everything that happened in San Francisco, but now Alex could feel that feeling becoming rekindled in Mulligan’s large palms, Lafayette’s soft grin.

“Terrific,” Washington complimented, his gratitude clear in the amount of concentration he gave the latte once the mug was in his hand, balancing the large mug as the foam bobbed precariously at the lip. “Thank you.”

“Hey, thank _you_ ,” Mulligan beamed proudly. “I basically get free publicity every time I feed and caffeinate you— your students got this café trending on Instagram, you know.”

“So I’ll be back for lunch— see you then.” Before he departed, Washington nodded at Alex. “Good to meet you, Alexander.” 

“I’ll be here too,” Alex blurted out. Both Mulligan and Lafayette immediately whooped in cheer behind him. Startled into laughter (but pleased, _so_ pleased), Alex turned to them, hand on the back of his neck. “I’ve only got experience working as a clerk, keeping books and such— you’ll have to teach me everything else basically from scratch. But I’ll help out as much as I can, I swear!”

“Of course, of course,” Lafayette said grandly, hoisting themselves over the counter to give Alex a big hug. Mulligan likewise reached over, ruffling Alex’s hair in a fond gesture that was quickly becoming familiar.

“That’s damn good news kid. And hey, you need help figuring out the academic stuff? Just ask Washington there.” With a wink at Washington, “last I heard, he’s pretty into the whole communal social advancement thing through educating the masses.”

“To say the least,” Washington chuckled. “Alright, I’ve really got to go, but Alexander—” A firm hand on Alex’s shoulder turned his attention back around. Washington’s gaze was part affirmation, part assessment. “—come over some time and tell me where you’re at with school. If you’re serious about school, we’ll get a plan going for you, no problem, alright?”

Eagerly nodding, Alex couldn’t help but reach out and grab Washington’s hand (the one with the briefcase— a little awkward, but better than the one with the coffee) again, shaking in vigorously in lieu of the hug he’d have liked to offer otherwise. Washington’s smile was a lot wider now.

“Alexander Hamilton,” he said approvingly, “I’ll see you around.”


	3. In the Place to Be

They flipped the sign to open at 9, once all the foodstuffs were prepped and going in the kitchen. Lafayette climbed up onto the counter and began ripping off yesterday’s menu, written on a huge roll of butcher paper. 

“ _Hercules likes to keep the food local_ ,” they explained to Alex and they passed the old menu down. “Scissors under the register, cut out the item names please, _we will put them in the display case to label the extra pastries._ ”

Right on cue, Mulligan exited the kitchen, two large trays of assorted pastries in hand. “Cut out everything except the almond tarts and the shortbread, we’re out of those,” he further instructed. “Then load these into the display, will you?”

Nodding, Alex took the menu to a table and began working on it. It was all concoctions he had never seen before, only read about, maybe, in outdated florid novels— souffléd pancakes with caramelized apples, sweet potato pudding, pecan torte with blackberry preserve, peach cobbler, summer squash bread.

“There are farmer’s markets here on Saturdays and Tuesdays.” Lafayette took the post-it note Mulligan handed them and began copying the new menu onto a fresh stretch of paper, which they fastened at the bottom with magnets against a metal strip attached to the wall. “Hercules changes the menu then, depends on what fresh food he buys. Fridays there is a market further down in Oakland, so those are experiment days. Hercules makes different snacks one buy one and people come buy them, _they’re sold cheap too_. Hercules takes feedback and we might incorporate them into the menu.”

“That is,” Alex blinked, “really cool. I like that you source local, it’s so much better than buying low-quality, over-processed crap from large corporations.”

“Corporations are the worst,” Lafayette agreed. And, oh, this was great— Alex had never needed sympathetic ears for his rants, necessarily, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt to have an audience on the same side. He felt the scissors leave his hands, dropping to the table as he worked himself up to full steam.

“Right, and the quality of their wares aside, corporate business practices are quite literally inhumane— you want to talk about economic disparity, take a damn good look at the Caribbean, the ridiculous tourism industry, the plantations. Of course it can’t be blamed purely on corporations but razing them to the ground certainly won’t hurt either. All this sleazy rhetoric about helping local economies and providing jobs when really, their exploitative policies— protected by the World Bank and IMF, no less!— were what robbed locals first of opportunities at self-sustenance—”

Building steam, Alex didn’t even hear the loud chime of the bell at the door. He was only interrupted by a voice right behind him:

“What’s this Gil, angry discourse about international economics at nine in the morning? _Without_ me?”

Alex spun around and came face to face with a pair of inquisitive eyes— brown the shade of A-natural on an electric keyboard, lashes a shade darker, freckles a shade lighter. Slightly taller, Alex felt himself turn fully, chin tucking down the same time the customer’s chin tilted up, their bodies parallel and entirely aligned. The customer had the look of someone about to say something clever and suave, but Alex watched as his smile slightly faltered at the intense scrutiny, his eyes blink several times fast.

Then, “Who are you?” 

“Alexander Hamilton. Who are you?”

“John Laurens.”

“ _John is one of our regulars,_ ” Lafayette chimed up from the back, their voice cast a little flat as they still faced the wall. “Good morning John, and I did not start it, Alex did.”

“ _You’ve a lot of regulars here, huh?_ ” Alex replied absently, and watched with rapt attention (again) as the customer— John Laurens, _John_ — visibly hesitated in his choice of words. This turn of silence was obviously strange enough that Lafayette found it necessary to pull their attention away from the menu, peering curiously over at John. Catching Lafayette’s almost-smirk, John quickly laughed and shuffled slightly back, away from Alex.

“You—” He had to stop to clear his throat, to which Lafayette just laughed, loud and delighted. John glared, scratching the back of his neck. “You speak French too, huh? Alexander, was it?” Alex caught John’s gaze scanning him up and down, settling on the black apron at his waist. “You work here?”

“Alex is my new roommate.” Frowning at Lafayette’s teasing tone, Alex figured that he was missing something— only he didn’t quite know what. John, with a bit of a sheepish smile, made his way to the counter, where Lafayette sat kicking their feet in glee. Vengefully, John snapped the elastic of their sock.

“Gimme my coffee, dammit,” John grumbled, “it’s nine in the morning, have mercy on me.”

“What will you have?” Alex was quick to jump in. Lafayette had promised to let Alex take all the coffee orders in order to teach him the operations of the espresso machine. John blinked at Alex’s eager expression, suddenly on the other side of the register, and slowly grinned.

“Is this newbie training time?” At Lafayette’s nod, John turned back to Alex, and the playful glint in his eyes was— distracting, to say the least. “Well Alexander, you want me to let you off easy, or can you take a challenge?”

Eyes narrowing, Alex flattened his palm on the counter and matched this John Laurens smirk for smirk.

“Bring it.”

* * *

By noon, Alex had learned how to make a pumpkin spice latte, a cinnamon latte, a nonfat soy latte, a coconut latte macchiato, a vanilla cappuccino, and a white mocha, extra dry. Four of the above drinks were John’s, and even though he switched to decaf halfway through he was still buzzing around, indecently caffeinated for 12 PM on a Saturday. Every time they caught a glimpse of John’s too-wide eyes, Lafayette would burst into laughter and be somewhat incapacitated for at least a minute, giggling. Alex too was having an incredibly good time chatting with John who surely, even without the influence of so much coffee, could’ve matched Alex’s penchant for impassioned speeches. Their conversation (when permitted, when no customers stood in line) had circled from Antigua to Jamaica to Alex’s hometown Nevis to Colombia— though “conversation” might be a slight understatement that didn’t quite encompass the amount of enthusiastic shouting and zealous noises of total agreement. 

The first time Mulligan stepped out from the kitchen, Alex had been mid-shout (“—essentially _coercing_ these milk farmers to sell off their livestock and lands with that shitty, factory-produced, less-nutritious powdered crap—”) and thought they were in trouble. Instead, Mulligan just slid a tray of pineapple upside-down cake slices at Alex and the rest.

“Tell me how those taste,” he ordered, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Too dry? Too sweet?”

After collecting his feedback (and snapping John on the shoulder with a twisted towel and a grin when John made a somber face, announcing he couldn’t give accurate critique with such a small sample, wouldn’t Mulligan please bring out the rest of the cake too?), Mulligan headed back into the kitchen. But before he disappeared, he peered at Alex over his shoulder.

“You want to talk about fucked up overseas economic policies— the banana industry. Chiquita? That shit is _messed up._ ”

That particular strand of conversation lasted them a solid hour and brought them through at least seven countries. When the precise combination of customer arrival (a small coffee and a blueberry muffin, which Alex bagged like a pastry-bagging _veteran_ at this point, practically every single customer that came in wanted one of Mulligan’s many spectacular kitchen creations), Lafayette being hailed to the back to help Mulligan with something time-sensitive on stovetop, and John wandering up to the counter again, leaving his books and bag at his table, Alex switched to tamer topics. Not that he couldn’t yell and learn about economic neocolonialism for the rest of the afternoon, but he figured they could always go back to that, should a more temperate line of conversation fail them. 

“So you’re a student?”

John blinked in surprise, obviously not expecting pleasantries at this point in their acquaintanceship. But these weren’t pleasantries, not really. Pleasantries were the vanilla, lukewarm conventions Alex was _terrible_ at. No, Alex asked not out of politeness, but that he really wanted to _know_.

“Yeah,” John answered. “Cal’s what, like seven blocks up? Far enough that this place isn’t swarming with students all the time. And I live only a block from here, and Mulligan and Lafayette treat me well, so this is my usual study spot.”

“Cal?” Alex echoed, frowning a little as he rearranged some of the pastries in the display case with a pair of tongs, hands fidgeting for something to do.

“Oh, right— UC Berkeley, sorry. We just call it Cal for short.”

It took several seconds for Alex to digest information, and then he shot up, head narrowly missing the edge of the display case.

“ _UC Berkeley_?” he hissed. John actually jumped at the intensity of his tone. “John, that’s amazing! I read about UC Berkeley and its history of radicalism, and the Free Speech Movement, right—?”

Alex abruptly cut himself off when John doubled over laughing. Their little spectacle had drawn the gaze of an older lady seated by the window, who looked over with an amused smile. Waving sheepishly, Alex looked back down and dealt a quick, sharp slap to John’s shoulder, red with embarrassment.

“What’s so funny?” he asked mutinously. “Just because I don’t know much about this country—”

“No, no, it’s not that,” John quickly interrupted, his hand coming up to cover warmly over Alex’s in apology. His smile though, was still more amused than sorry. “It’s just— well, I’m used to the _Wow John, UC Berkeley? That’s amazing!_ thing, you know? Not to sound like an asshole or anything, but if people aren’t looking dubious that I got into Cal, they’re busy fawning over Berkeley’s Ivy League prestige. But you— dude, I know I just met you and all but I feel like I know you already, you know? You’re scarily consistent— of _course_ you would jump straight to the student protests. But yeah! It’s true, it’s true— Cal had it all, Free Speech Movement, Mario Savio. We built a whole café to honor the prior and named some _stairs_ for the latter, because, you know, the university wanted to show how much it _cared_ about underprivileged voices. Administration _loves_ being told they’re fucking the students over with their money-grubbing ways, which is why all of our protests absolutely work! Hooray, Napolitano forever, she cares _so much_ about keeping education publicly accessible, it’s why she’s abolishing tuition you know.”

Lafayette, who had emerged from the kitchen in the middle of John’s speech, squeezed Alex’s shoulders from behind.

“John is sarcastic and full of resentment,” they remarked, managing to sound both sympathetic and chastising. John squeezed Alex’s hand in apology again.

“Sorry,” he cringed. “I can never talk about Cal without bitching at least a little.”

“With good reason,” Mulligan snorted. His hands were encased in floral-patterned oven mitts and there was a rather noticeable streak of flour on his bandana, but the wry anger in his expression and stance still managed to make him look formidable. “I’ve been here for seven years, and it’s just a waiting game to them. Y’all protest now, fine by them, they hold out for three or four years, and the problem children graduate. They get cred for supposedly listening to student voices, and then turn right back around to harmful business practices— as a _public university_ , mind you. The student turnover rate is a built-in get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Institutionalized amnesia,” Lafayette murmured darkly. “I talked to a German student on the bus, and she says America is ridiculous too. In Germany, students protest, and the administration listens— _voila,_ no more tuition.”

“So, what, the administration actually capitalizes on the university’s reputation for student radicalism and uses it to disenfranchise students even more?” Alex asked, fuming. Lafayette mounted their chin on Alex’s shoulder, stray strands from his ponytail tickling the back of Alex’s neck.

“Oh no,” they said, voice pitched low and rumbling, “only the poor locals. You see, rich out-of-state students are their— how you say— _bankroll_ , administration would not dare touch _them_.” 

John clasped Alex’s hand between both of his, gazing at Alex’s eyes with irony.

“Hashtag-not all students,” he said somberly, before cracking into laughter again. Mulligan joined him with a snort, while Lafayette just rolled their eyes and nuzzled into Alex’s neck some more.

“ _You smell like the airport,_ ” they commented, wrinkling their nose. “Lunch break, you should shower.”

“And catch some sleep,” Mulligan added. “There’s a cot beneath your bed, Gil, pull it out for him won’t you?”

“No, that’s fine,” Alex quickly said. “I’m not tired, I can still work.” And a little belatedly, he whacked Lafayette’s elbow. “And shut up, I do _not_ smell.”

There’s a brief second’s pause, where Lafayette went suspiciously silent and Alex only saw John’s eyes suddenly go comically round. Then, Alex felt the peculiar and _very specific_ sensation of a handful of cocoa powder going down his neck and back. With a terrible screech of surprise, Alex jumped back, to find Mulligan already guffawing and Lafayette standing with a smug look and a hand covered in cocoa.

“You do not smell anymore, no,” Lafayette said importantly, arms crossed over their waist, “but you definitely need a shower now.”

“ _Why._ ”

“Because you gotta take a break, kid,” Mulligan answered, wiping away and honest-to-god tear from the corner of his eye from laughing too hard. “I know with all our shit-talking just now it’s kinda laughable to cite rules and regulations, but I gotta put you on ice. Go take a hot shower and relax, for _real_.”

“But…” Alex turned to look imploringly at John, his last hope. John, though, only shrugged helplessly.

“I gotta go get groceries, finish this book— you know how it goes, the grind of academia.” With a small, almost bashful smile, John reached out to pat Alex’s hand yet again— only to pause awkwardly when he realized how often he’s been doing that. Hand conspicuously hovering, John cleared his throat, trying to retract it with a casual stretch. Nobody was fooled (especially not Alex, who rather wished he had grabbed it, in hindsight). “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I was thinking I’d give Alex the day off tomorrow,” Mulligan mused, eyeing John’s hand with a devious twinkle in his eyes. “He can go take a turn around the city, see the sights and such.”

“Of course, he will need a tour guide,” Lafayette smoothly continued. Their expression gave nothing away, but secretly, their fist and Mulligan’s met behind Alex’s back in a bump of solidarity. “John, will you take him? I have to stay and make up for hours from last week when I was gone to the thing with the friend.”

“That’s true.” The two idiots making doe-eyes at each other over the cash register fortunately missed the sheer conspicuousness of Mulligan’s confirmation. Lafayette took it a step further, drama queen that they were, and did a full-body theatrical aside, rolling their eyes at Mulligan.

“Well, I don’t have any plans tomorrow,” John offered tentatively. “I’d love to take you out— um, show you around, no problem.”

“You can show me the steps they named after Mario Savio,” Alex joked weakly.

“Oh you think I’m kidding about those.”

“It’s a date!” Lafayette announced, before quickly shoving Alex away, toward the back of the café. “Hour lunch break now, Alex, _shower and unpack, I will help you settle in._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I have a lot to say about UC Berkeley.
> 
> Also! Citing the sources of my knowledge: _A Small Place_ by Jamaica Kincaid, as well as _Life and Debt_ the documentary for this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roommate appreciation, English Day, and it's low-key going to be a date.

Alex ended up crashing after his shower, sleeping for a solid thirteen hours before snapping awake at two in the morning, frantically pacing until Lafayette wrapped him tight in a cocoon with their comforter and physically laid him back in bed.

“ _Don’t worry don’t worry,”_ Lafayette slurred sleepily. “ _We left you to sleep on purpose._ ”

“ _But you must have been so busy,_ ” said Alex, squirming in the wrap. But Lafayette was apparently some sort of genius strategist, and only had to keep their hands pinching the comforter shut in two specific places to render all of Alex’s struggling moot. Their eyes remained stubbornly closed throughout the whole skirmish. “ _I’ve got to work for room and board, how can I sleep here when I haven’t worked_ —”

“ _You worked in the morning._ ”

“ _And Mulligan fed me breakfast and lunch and then a shower and then now I’m sleeping in your bed, I’m fairly sure the who-owes-whom scale is tipped fully in Mulligan’s favor—_ ”

“ _There wouldn’t have been any work to be done had you been there anyways._ ”

“ _I could’ve—_ ”

“Alex, _no_.” Lafayette’s eyes flickered open, and they snapped their teeth centimeters from Alex’s nose, startling Alex into silence. Then they grinned, a lazy, understanding thing, like they and Alex were coconspirators in a brilliant plot. “ _There were no customers without you there, absolutely none at all. We sat around and did nothing. So don’t worry your pretty head, alright?_ ”

Then Lafayette tossed a leg, encased in psychedelically colored leggings that were somehow bright even in the middle of the night, over Alex, then pressed a kiss like a stamp to Alex’s forehead. That was enough for Alex to burrow into his cocoon, muttering mutinously about cheating Frenchpersons, the back of his neck distinctly red if there had been any light to see with. The spot of embarrassment though, was brief, and before long Alex came back up for air again.

“Then really, I shouldn’t take tomorrow off. I’ve got to make up for enough hours as it is.” Even as Alex spoke those words, he could feel disappointment dragging at his cadence. Lafayette could hear it as well, and snorted without even opening their eyes. 

“Do not, as the Americans say, ditch John,” they declared. “ _Now will you please go back to sleep?_ Call time will be seven in the morning, _and we have to dress you for your date._ ”

“My _what_?! Wait a minute, Lafayette, this isn’t a— Oh god, is this a—”

Alex was promptly cut off by Lafayette’s pillow smacking right into the center of his face. The cot Alex was allocated sat just next to the bed, a couple of inches shorter; Lafayette, keeping their comforter pinned with one elbow, spun Alex out and deposited him neatly in his sheets.

“ _Please, Alex_ ,” Lafayette mumbled, hair fanning over their pillow in a perfect circle. “ _If you must stay awake, at least keep quiet— that would be enough._ ”

* * *

Alex actually did end up nodding off to sleep. He was up like a shot again at seven, though, keenly staring at the alarm clock gently buzzing on Lafayette’s headboard. Sunlight was just beginning to come through the window, warming the air, and Lafayette blinked awake demurely, lashes fluttering and lips parting in a soft breath. Alex’s breath caught a little at the sight, and he had to turn away in flustered fidgeting when Lafayette turned their head, the sunlight casting _just so_ on the mocha skin of their cheekbones. He heard Lafayette take a yawning stretch, their hum gravely with sleep, sounding almost like a purr of a content cat.

“ _Good morning,_ ” Alex offered, picking at the skin beneath his nails. He heard Lafayette sit up behind him, nudging him companionably with their shoulder.

“Good morning.” When Alex chanced a peek over, Lafayette was nodding to themselves, posture upright but hands still comfortably slack with sleep in their lap. “Okay,” they said, still using the same deep, throaty voice that made the bottoms of Alex’s feet tingle, “English day today. Alex, will you help me?”

“I— Of course. When I’m here. That is—” he quickly interjected, “—unless I really should work today?”

Lafayette shook their head languidly back and forth, back and forth in a steady No. They were smiling though, and made a shooing motion with their hands, gesturing Alex toward the bathroom. During lunch break yesterday, Lafayette had given Alex a quick tour of the upstairs flat, which consisted of a living room/study/library, two bedrooms and a full bathroom. The bedrooms were connected in the center by the bath, and now Alex could hear Mulligan’s side of the door open, and Mulligan starting the shower while imitating some brassy jazz tune.

“You go brush your teeth and wake up— freshen up, first, I will go make breakfast,” Lafayette directed. “Hercules is crazy, and told John to be here at eight AM sharp, so we do not have a lot of time. _¡Ándale, ándale!_ ”

Alex learned two things that morning. One, Lafayette’s “English days” were really “No Defaulting to French” days, which meant that while they spoke mostly in English, there would also be a generous spattering of phrases and words in the handful of other languages they learned around the neighborhood. Two, Mulligan loved Adele with a fiery passion, and if one were to— theoretically— attempt to speak to Mulligan as he belted “Hello” in the shower, Mulligan would just sing louder over you and refuse to answer. Breakfast was slightly charred bacon and golden blueberry waffles, of which Mulligan made four, sliding the last into a bag and instructing Alex to give to John.

“And tell him,” Mulligan said in a threatening tenor (that could hold an amazing vibrato at a surprisingly high key, as Alex found out earlier that morning), “if he hurts your feelings that waffle will be the last off-menu I’ll ever give him.”

“What is that called?” Lafayette absently asked from where they were pouring three cups of coffee.

“The shovel talk,” Mulligan replied, crossing his arms satisfyingly. Alex blinked confusedly at him.

“Why shovel?”

“I guess like, I got a shovel ready to bury your dead ass if you hurt my friend,” Mulligan answered, shrugging. “Or maybe I was supposed to threaten him with a shovel.”

“Why would he hurt my feelings?” Alex asked.

“And are you really supposed to relegate that message through courier?” Lafayette complained, expertly balancing the three cups as they made their way back over to the breakfast table. Yet another thing Alex learned: Lafayette’s English was far from insufficient— they just had a very specific (and honestly, rather poetic) set of vocabulary learned from shameless eavesdropping, pop music, and infomercials. “You have to make threats in person, no?”

“You’re right,” Mulligan said, sounding stricken. He didn’t answer Alex’s question. “Well, I don’t really want to say that to his face, you know? He’s a good kid. So Alex, forget it, I guess.”

“Plus, hurt feelings are one way of learning each other better,” Lafayette supplied, sitting back down and folding their hands sagely on the table. Alex found some threads of the conversation out of reach, and it was really too early in the morning for pursuit, so he just nodded along and reached for his own coffee.

“Thank you,” he said. Lafayette unfolded in a blink of an eye and slapped their hand sharply down on the table. Flinching, Alex almost tipped his mug over, if it weren’t for Mulligan’s quick reflexes, reaching out and steadying Alex. At Mulligan’s chastising look, Lafayette quickly touched the back of Alex’s hand in apology.

“I have a question,” they explained.

Mulligan snorted, “you’ve been watching too much Jeopardy.”

“What’s the question?” Alex asked by way of indicating forgiveness.

“You say thank you, I’m supposed to say you’re welcome, yes?” Both Alex and Mulligan nodded. Lafayette’s eyebrows furrowed. “But! At the restaurants, at the grocery stores where students work, they only say ‘no problem’ or ‘of course,’ or sometimes they thank me in turn _._ I am young too, do I learn from them?”

“There’s someone you can ask,” Mulligan said, nodding at the door. In an eerie repeat of yesterday, Lafayette was once again up on their feet, flipping dexterously over empty chairs and empty tables to get to Washington just as the man opened the door. Lafayette wrapped themselves around Washington, Washington patted their back indulgently.

“Mulligan, Alexander,” he greeted, permitting Alex a little smile, in silent acknowledgement of Alex’s decision to stay. “Lafayette. I think your friend is outside.”

There came a hurried squawk from outside the door, “ _no I’m not_!” Then, “dammit, crap, okay I guess I am.” John Laurens stepped into view, face almost entirely buried underneath a huge scarf but the tips of his ears dark red. “Um, hi. Good morning.”

Alex, Lafayette, and Mulligan all looked up at the clock— Alex sincerely, Lafayette and Mulligan with little smirks on their faces. It was barely seven forty.

“Oh, shut up,” John all but wailed. “I want coffee, gimme coffee.”

Washington, looking amused, raised his hand. “I second that motion, please.”

“On the house today,” Mulligan announced grandly. “For Washington because you are one dedicated, sorry bastard if you’re up this early on a Sunday. And for Laurens because you are _adorable_ when you’re all embarrassed like that, Lafayette we should do this more often.”

There’s a brief flutter of activity. Alex shuffled his way over to John, extra blueberry waffle in hand, and John stalled awkwardly between the register and Alex, bouncing in place, and Washington navigating around John with Lafayette attached to his side, and Mulligan polishing off a slice of his waffle as he made his way to the espresso machine. Small chitchat all over— _Alexander, hey dude, hah, hey man what’s up?— for you! Oh, from Mulligan, not me. I mean, me too I guess but— do I say You’re Welcome like an older person then?— actually a bit of a socio-linguistics phenomenon, I can show you an article on it if you’d like— latte for the General, check it out it’s a butterfly, kid you want one of these too? I’ll put a heart on yours, haven’t quite figured out how to artistically convey hormones yet_ — and all of a sudden, Lafayette was shooing Alex and John out of the café, Alex’s hands still sudsy from washing the breakfast plates.

“It’s already eight,” Lafayette explained with a wink, “and I’m certain John has a long itinerary.”

“Well, we don’t have to do it all!” John quickly amended. His fast gesticulations threatened to upset the coffee cup in his hands, and Alex stilled him with a hand at his elbow and a little chuckle. “Really, no pressure, they’re just suggestions!”

Washington, who had left a little earlier, emerged from Mt. Vernon next door, his coat and scarf gone and a small card in his hand. He approached Alex, jogging slightly to keep warm.

“Here.” Alex took the proffered card— blue, with a white arrow design on it— and examined it. “It’s a Clipper card, in case you need to take the bus. We give these free ones out to students— you can take this now and come fill out a quick form for me later.”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t—” Alex was certainly grateful, but there was something about the presumed association with the learning center and Washington’s matter-of-fact tone that made the rejection more than just out of politeness from Alex’s end. John, however, was already nodding along.

“I was gonna take you over to the BART station to get one for future use, but this is great! We can have more time to do other stuff now.”

Swallowing a sigh, Alex slipped the card into his pocket, nodding his thanks to Washington. With a little wave to them all, Washington returned to his building. A car had already pulled up outside, and two people got out— a tall guy looking solemn, with a mature air about him that made his age difficult to pinpoint, and a beautiful girl, hair curled dramatically around her face and her makeup dark and fierce. The way she carried herself, though, spoke of nerves, and it’s only with a supportive hand on her shoulder from the guy that she nodded and stepped into Mt. Vernon.

“Before you go,” spoke Lafayette behind Alex, and Alex looked away from the little scene, just in time for Lafayette to throw something over his head and face. Alex quickly yanked the itchy folds down— a scarf, in blue and gold. With a little whoop, John pulled out a beanie from his pocket in the same color scheme, and offered Lafayette a fist bump.

“Warriors,” John explained, wrestling the beanie over his ponytail. “That’s our team over in Oakland. You ever watch basketball, Alex?”

“Save it for later, please,” Lafayette said, rolling their eyes. “Alex— I told you layers, didn’t I?”

Alex did remember, as Lafayette watched Alex dress with a critical eye. At first, Alex had been quite self-conscious about the cheap linen, simple worn shirts, humiliation burning up the back of his neck when Lafayette clicked their tongue in disapproval. But all Lafayette did was toss Alex a t-shirt and a button-up (color- and pattern-coordinated, of course, warm brown hues that complimented Alex’s skin, his eyes), explaining how important layering his outfit was, considering the crazy weather patterns of the Bay.

“Ah, thank you—”

“No problem!” Lafayette answered excitedly, beaming. “Washington said I should try, if I want. I like it a lot, better than you’re welcome. It seems friendlier, like _gracias, de nada._ ”

“Are they still here?!” Mulligan called from inside the café. Lafayette laughed, and pulled the glass door shut, waving enthusiastically from the inside. And then Alex laughed, and John laughed, tone a bit helpless.

“Okay, okay, you ready for this?” John held out his hand, clad now in a green fingerless mitt that looked hand-crocheted. Alex’s own hand, wrapped warmly in a pair of purple leather gloves Mulligan tossed him (“from an old lover,” Mulligan explained with a shrug, while Lafayette’s eyes looked keen enough to be dissecting the gloves with their glare alone), slipped into John’s.

“Yes,” Alex answered, can’t help the sly tone that slipped into his voice, “take me, I’m yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my [Tumblr](http://touchmycape.tumblr.com/) is Hamilton trash so, join me


	5. Laurens I like you a lot

“Okay, okay,” John said as they strolled down the block, arm in arm. It’s been recently damp, and little mounds of pulpy leaves dotted the sides of the road. The morning drizzle trickled alongside the sidewalk, gurgling its way down the drains at the intersections. “I gotta ask real quick to get a scope of what we’re gonna do for the rest of the day, but it might be an uncomfortable question, you only have to answer yes or no and there’s no judgment attached either way, alright?”

His attention dispersed amongst the unfamiliar bird calls, something blue darting in the bushes, a corner church’s sign with a quote from Job, Alex perhaps wasn’t focused enough on John’s question to feel the appropriate apprehension from the disclaimer. Two bikes sped by, their riders clothed in sleek gear, stamped from head to toe in color-coordinated logos.

Then, “will costs be a large consideration?” Alex’s steps stalled. John, attached at his side, stopped as well, turning to him with an apologetic yet earnestly pressing gaze. “Not that I’m planning on busting out more than around twenty bucks, but— there are plenty of things to love in this city without needing to drop more than, say, five bucks. Should we go for that route?”

That morning, Alex had checked his wallet (again, futilely, as if looking and looking would somehow change the sorry lack of content) before slipping it into the inside pocket of the single jacket he owned. A lonely ten sat crumpled in the fold. The shiny new Clipper card beside it promised a matching amount, according to its wrapping, but that was specifically transit fee. By god, Alex wanted to say no— it wasn’t even just a matter of pride (although, if he were to be perfectly honest, pride still choked in his throat like a motherfucker), but also simple longing. Longing for the ability to be just a _little_ more careless, a little more spendthrift.

But, he couldn’t. He _wouldn’t._ With a slow nod and an exhale to gather himself back together, Alex even managed a smile as he carefully catalogued the torrent of emotions he felt, and put it all away.

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

But man, John Laurens was _darling._ The determined non-judgment he made sure to telegraph, and the smile full of camaraderie— and that bright-colored hat. It all worked well to soothe the abrasions on Alex’s ego. John started walking again, and his bare fingertips, pink in the cold, pressed into Alex’s forearm. Alex covered them with his own hands, earning a surprised, uncoordinated, and all-around adorable grin from John. Alex was sure his own face matched.

“I’ll take you to see campus first, yeah? The buildings will be closed, but I figured I could show you the landmarks. And if you want to see the buildings, you can come on a weekday when I don’t have class, and I’ll show you around those too.”

“What classes do you take?” John was already nodding along, catching on the implicit question.

“Yeah, and you can definitely come join me in lectures too! Um, let’s see, I’ve got two African American Studies classes—”

“On what??” 

“Queer African American Lit, and Caribbean Cultures— hey, you’d like that.”

“I’d like both.” Too excited, Alex had sped up his pace, sightline somewhere over the horizon line and gleaming— had he looked over, he would’ve seen the way John’s eyes widened, then crinkled in pleasure. “The second they told me I could come to the States, I started preparing. Read through practically the whole library in a month. There were only two bookstores nearby, and one wouldn’t let me read inside, so I would always visit the other to see if they’ve got a new shipment in. One of my favorites was a novella, _Passing_ by Nella Larsen— have you read it?” 

“Heard of it, never read it though.”

“Ack, it’s _brilliant._ ” Alex’s eyes were fever-bright, and his wild gesticulations had torn his hands out of John’s grip— but John hardly minded, watching his new friend with no little amounts of awe. A palette of grey still clung to the air, as it did in foggy Bay Area (though no doubt, it was worst across the waters in SF); the icy puffs of white that streamed from their mouths with their laughter seemed imminently brighter. Cars whooshed by, strollers passed, and they broached block after block of unopened restaurants and packed coffee shops. Even as he talked, Alex seemed— aware. Birdlike, the way his head tilted left and right at precise angles to take in everything. It was adorable, it was incredible.

For the five blocks up to the university front gates, Alex continued to serenade the merits of African American literature, which, as far as John was concerned, made Alex the single loveliest person in the entire world. Their back-and-forth was much like the past day’s, paragraph-long endorsements of Baldwin, Hurston, Hughes, Butler, egged on by passionate _mhm_ ’s of total agreement, the pace giddy and dreamlike, dancelike in its twists of topic.

The university was, really, quite subpar in comparison. John was brought to his knees in laughter when Alex admitted as much.

“It’s— nice, of course,” Alex attempted. “I’ve never seen something like this except in pictures and brochures.”

Wheezing, John patted the wide steps beneath Sproul, then tugging on Alex’s hand. “Join me, these are the famous steps.”

With a little huff (and careful smoothing down of his jeans, the pair Lafayette insisted he wore instead of trousers for a day’s trek through the city), Alex sat down beside John. Their sides pressed together, Alex inspected the steps.

“I guess I was a bit laconic yesterday, riding a bitter, somewhat high horse,” John began in amends. “This is where he gave his famous speech.”

“ _When the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part_ ,” Alex quoted. John chuckled, nudging Alex with an impressed lift of his eyebrows.

“What more do you know about our country, Alexander Hamilton?” With a matching smile, Alex reached out to tug on a spring of hair that had escaped John’s ponytail. “You seem to possess an encyclopedic knowledge.”

“Well, I did read the encyclopedia.” John blinked, Alex nodded solemnly. “All the volumes of one set, at least. Except the book of Q, somehow the library was missing that one.”

“Of all the books,” John _tsk_ ed in lament. “Think of all the knowledge lost. Quarters, quiches, Quentin Tarantino— but I guess he’s under T— oh, _quinoa,_ dear god I can’t believe you missed out on _quinoa._ ”

“John Laurens,” Alex said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Where did you _come_ from?”

“South Carolina.”

“I— was not expecting that.”

“Yeah.” Bracing his arms behind him, John leaned back, tipping his head up at the sky. The smile at his lips was just on this side of forlorn. “My family’s old Southern money. Good people, I suppose, but not— not like you and me. You and I. I tell them I’m taking an Ethnic Studies class and they don’t _get_ it, you know? I say structural inequality, they say ethnic essentialism— it’s all internalized bullshit is what it is, but doesn’t make it a less bitter pill to swallow. So I ran away here. I’m trying with them, I really am, but god it takes a lot.”

With a commiserating huff of breath, Alex leaned his head on John’s shoulder. Shifting minutely, John accommodated Alex in the soft stretch of muscle beneath his clavicle.

“Racism among ethnic minorities,” John said in the bitterest voice Alex had heard from him yet, “we shred and maim each other for the last scraps at the Big Man’s table. Our lives are their dinnertime entertainment." 

“We’ve got to put our bodies upon the gears, upon the wheels,” Alex said fiercely beneath. He could hear the thumps of John’s heart from where he laid, getting a little louder, the tone a little brighter as John nodded gamely along.

“Here they talked of revolution,” John answered, straightening up as he patted the steps again. Then he grimaced, singing quickly, “ _here it was they lit the flame,_ okay that wasn’t a very well-thought-out reference, but I’ll stop there, while I’m ahead. And hey, speaking of revolution,” he said, perking up, “I got a little surprise for you. Before supper, so we’ve got time.”

“What is it?” Alex asked, ever eager.

“It can wait,” John replied, laughing chidingly, “be patient.”

“Don’t think I’m particularly good at that.”

“Well maybe we can distract you. Lunch? Best and cheapest sushi in the world, holy crap, your world will never be the same.”

* * *

After lunch (one roll and a drink: $5.50, cheap yes but worrying nonetheless), John shepherded Alex onto a bus (fare: $2.00 from his Clipper card) and they took an ambling ride to SF. John pointed out provincial East Bay, told Alex weird stories about a lumber yard and a pet store (with a giant cat mounted sideways on the outside!) they passed, then let Alex gawk in awe as they crossed the Bay Bridge.

“When we come back for dinner,” John said quietly at Alex’s side, “as the sun’s setting, it’s even more gorgeous.”

They sat in the center section of the bus, facing forward. A couple of elderly folk sat up front, and three guys, younger than John and Alex, claimed the backseats, playing tinny hip-hop out loud from a phone. Alex kept turning, looking and looking, gaze hungrily absorbing the panorama, his shoes drumming a beat.

John’s surprise for Alex was a protest. They emerge from Civic Center into a blast of cold; John's gritted teeth doubled as a grin. It was SF’s mayoral re-inauguration at Town Hall, and Alex’s eyes got wider and wider as John explained the gross rehashing of racial injustice and police brutality, the demand to fire the police chief, the unacceptable silence of the mayor. Over the course of at most twenty minutes, the crowd around them swelled to fifty, sixty people as they were ushered in, police circling them (John whispering, "S _howtime_ "). Over loudspeaker, they were informed that they would be escorted out if they spoke during the swear-in itself. Underneath the chants and calls to action preluding the ceremony, Alex’s hand found John’s, giving it an excited squeeze. 

Two hours and the appearance of thirty riot cops later, when it was all over, and they were on the bus back to Berkeley, Alex let loose a yelp, bouncing energetically on his toes as he threw himself around John in a hug. Startled for only a brief second, John eagerly reeled Alex in, holding Alex warmly by the back of his neck, the trim cut of his waist. Over Alex's shoulder, John could see the bus driver giving them an amused look.

“That was—” Breathless, Alex laughed, giddy and hot against John’s neck. “—wow. Amazing. That leader was incredible! The way everyone respected her and took her direction— and the police! God you should’ve seen that policeman’s face next to mine, when he told us to move and we didn’t budge a goddamn inch, but when the leader called we all went— you should’ve seen! Does this happen often? Is it always like that?”

Giving Alex’s hair one last fond ruffle, John gently pushed him toward the window, where the sky was luminescent orange, and the ocean looked ready to fizz away in bright sheets of white foam. Alex’s eyes snapped back and forth, lit gold from the sunset, from the window to John back to the window again. Alex exhaled sharply. 

“God I love this country,” he said fervently. His hands gripped tight to John’s. “Take me to more protests, please? How do you even find out about them? Oh! —Where’s the library closest to Mulligan’s? They have computers there, right?”

“I’ll take you, of course I’ll take you.” John found his tone helplessly fond, almost tender. Alex’s gaze flickered to his, and stayed there. “And it’s not always like that, some are better, some are worse. We got teargased once, me and Laf and Mulligan. Washington told me an upcoming demonstration in Oakland. I’ll show you the library, yes they have computers, Alex I—” A grin, almost pained. “—god, you’re fucking _brilliant_.”

For half a second, Alex looked taken aback. Then half a second more, he looked almost _embarrassed_ , the back of his neck red, revealed by the scarf he bunched in his fist (the temperature invariably became warmer at the protest). And then, the enthusiastic, giddy Alex was back.

“John Laurens,” he said, grinning. “I like you. A _lot._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "Passing" _is_ an excellent novella. Highly recommended.  
>  2\. James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Octavia Butler  
> 3\. writing makes falling in love look so easy
> 
> Comments are love, plot suggestions are enthusiastic high-fives. Bonus points if you poke me for all my lame references.


	6. ignorant white guy refuted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love this fic and want to keep updating, but also school started and I became obsessed with Star Wars um. BUT I'M STILL HERE, STILL FIGHTING.

John and Alex’s return to the café at sunset was a return to an angry Lafayette, a gathered crowd, and Mulligan with red splattered all over his hands and apron. When Mulligan caught sight of them hovering at the door, he quickly waved them in. A girl in blue followed behind them as Alex held the door open, carrying a covered baking dish.

“Is that blood?” she asked, sounding stricken. Looking down in surprise, Mulligan flexed his hands and watched as the stains cracked and flaked. Then he licked his palm.

“Nah, it’s pomegranate juice.” Guffawing at the collective sigh of relief, Mulligan smacked Alex in the shoulder. “Hey kid, you should go over there and watch the execution.”

“What’s happening?” Alex asked, confused. He could pick out Lafayette’s voice intertwined with another, taking turns angrily orating.

The girl in blue, circling around to give John a quick peck on the cheek, rolled her eyes fondly.

“My sister.”

Alex pushed closer, past several sets of students watching with eager bloodlust in their expressions. In the center of attention stood a posh coat and a mousy guy in it, white and getting paler yet, as Lafayette and a girl in an astoundingly magenta coat berated him.

“—and _no,_ doesn’t matter the circumstances because reverse racism is _not real—_ ”

“ _History_ , you must know the topic? Or does private school curriculum consider anything that might make white America look bad _extraneous_ —” 

“That’s exactly what it is. White privilege is truly incredible, it allows you to alter reality as you see fit!”

“ _All I’m saying,_ ” the mousy guy said in a matching mousy voice. He tried to straighten his shoulders, but the girl in magenta did it first, crossed her arms and cocked her head like an invitation to war, and the guy quailed, shrinking back down. His expression remained sour, but he could look neither the girl nor Lafayette in the eye. “All I’m saying, is that it’s not _nice_ , people should welcome everyone. To have a sign that says _Gringo go home_ is—”

“ _Dude._ ” The censuring bellow came from the girl, but the way she and Lafayette stood in identical poise and expression made the fact that they were separate people rather irrelevant. The mousy guy actually jumped. “You’re telling me that you really cannot think of a single goddamn reason that a South American country historically _fucked over_ by the United States would not want a white politician and his slimy corporate policies meddling with their affairs?”

“I just—”

A slighter girl, clothed in shades of pink, ducked out from behind the girl in magenta. “ _Gringo,_ ” she pronounced, addressing the mousy guy and pointing a finger at the door. “ _Go home._ ”

The mousy guy wanted to posture, Alex could tell— but when he threw up his hands in exasperation someone in the crowd (sounding suspiciously like Mulligan) booed loudly. It caught on, the guy scampered out of the store, and Lafayette and the two girls were being lauded with exuberant applause. Alex pushed his way into the front, clasping Lafayette by the arm.

“Alex, you’re home!” they exclaimed. Mere moments ago, their eyes had been dark with disdain, the angle of their chin contemptuous— now they were all the warm and languid smiles Alex had already grown used to. Lafayette adjusted the scarf at Alex’s throat. “Come, you must meet the loveliest sisters in the entire world.”

“Loveliest sisters in the world who are about to go viral,” spoke the girl in pink as she grinned toothily at her phone. “The headline, can you imagine?— _YouTube Star Peggy Schuyler and Sister Decimate Racist Asshole._ ”

“ _With Local Café Employee,_ ” Alex added, nudging Lafayette playfully with his elbow. The girl in pink nodded graciously, accepting the edit. To her side, the girl in magenta looked to still be fuming, eyebrows arched and hands on her hips.

“ _Racist asshole_ is right,” she said, “he comes into _our_ neighborhood and sprouts that pretentious poor-white-people crap? He has another thing coming. Laf—” She turned to Lafayette, and for a glimmer of a moment, her eyes rested on Alex. The appraising glance was gone in a breath. And then she high-fived Lafayette. “—fantastic teamwork. Join my team, screw technicalities.”

“The technicalities are that I’m not in school,” Lafayette explained patiently to Alex on the side. “Angelica, meet Alex.”

“Alexander Hamilton,” Alex said. It was in part due to old-timey etiquette as well as an image in his head— black and white, romantic music swelling, beautiful male and female leads leaning in for a kiss— that Alex took Angelica’s hand and dipped low, pressing his lips to her knuckles. He heard a sharp inhale and— anxious— looked up, only to find the same appraising gaze from Angelica. Alex could only stare wide-eyed, ignorant to what she was looking for. That didn’t stop his next words, however: “Forgive me if this is too forward, but it strikes me that I ought to ask your hand in partnership.”

Angelica’s eyebrows shot up, and her tone was between surprised and caustic when she asked, “What for?”

“For next time you school an arrogant prick, of course. It looked very—” Alex’s grin was sharp, the focus in his gaze effusive. Angelica’s lips parted in a muted word, or a silent gasp. “— _satisfying_.”

Suddenly, beside them, John wolf-whistled as Mulligan broke into a slow, sarcastic clap. Angelica didn’t quite jerk away, but Alex nonetheless felt the disappointment in her hand parting from his. She was smiling, however, a spark of elation in her eyes.

“Angelica. It’s a pleasure.”

“And I’m Peggy,” chimed in the girl in pink. With a little hip bump, she booted Angelica out of the way and held her own hand out, palm facing the floor and fingers extended. With a little laugh, Alex complied, kissing her hand too. “You may have heard of me, I’m a little famous.”

“Forgive me, I don’t know,” Alex replied with a slight frown. With a gasp of mock surprise, John swooped forward, arms open as Peggy jumped rather primly into his hold.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” he called, spinning Peggy around. Peggy’s eyes fluttered dramatically shut as she struck a classical pose, one leg bent and the other outstretched in hot pink denim. “We have gathered here this evening to celebrate YouTube sensation _AndPeggy_ and her _one million subscribers_!”

The folks around clapped and whooped accordingly. John tried to hoist Peggy onto his shoulders, but being of rather small stature (though Alex was unerringly impressed with the flexing muscles of his arms) stumbled a bit. Mulligan reached forward and took over then, balancing Peggy on one shoulder with ease and shooting John a smug, teasing smirk. John aimed a kick at his shins. Peggy, for her part, kept her eyes closed in magisterial elegance, crossing her legs and extending one arm in a genteel wave. The gathered people were chuckling, and more than one had their phones out, filming from different angles.

“Lifestyle, entertainment, tutorials, advice— she does them all,” Angelica picked up in the same narrator voice as John. Brief eye contact and a deliberate smile, however, told Alex she was also explaining for Alex’s benefit. “Let’s do a quick go-around, shall we? Favorite videos!”

“Mine is the low-budget shoe maintenance,” someone piped up, garnering a laugh from the crowd when they gestured to the sleek leather boots encasing their calves.

“Mine is water politics,” someone else called out. A round of concurring snaps.

“A Feminist Explication of Beyoncé!” the girl in blue from before called. Several people in the crowd whooped.

“Brown, Bi, and Beautiful!”

“A Bisexual and Asexual Walk into a Bar!”

Just then, the bell over the door rang loud, and Washington entered, alongside a demurely smiling woman, their hands joined.

“Hey Washingtons!” Mulligan called, “favorite Peggy video!”

The woman— Mrs. Washington, Alex presumed— answered without missing a beat, “Seven Ways to Keep Your Man in Line.”

The room cracked up in loud laughter, and for the first time, Alex got to see George Washington fall into helpless peals of his own. Washington straightened up just as the noise died down, assuming his most regal posture before he decreed:

“Seven More Ways, ft. Martha Washington.”

The howling guffaws resumed, and the Washingtons made their way inside, eyes on each other, lovingly beaming. Peggy, mounted on Mulligan’s shoulder above them all, blew the Washingtons a kiss before having to alight from her dangerously shaking perch. 

“Alright, alright, that’s what I’m talking about!” Literally tears streaming down his face from laughing so hard, John called back everybody’s attention. “In Peggy’s honor, the Boston Tea Party is proud to host our community potluck— and here’s the beloved owner to say a few words! You know and love him, you’ve probably slept with him, _Hercules Mulligan_!”

Mulligan stepped forward amidst a round of catcalls and wolf whistles, a smug smirk on his face. “Hey,” he drawled, “you’re welcome. I’m here every evening, folks.”

“So am I,” Lafayette added dryly, “unfortunately. Our next community project will be getting Hercules— his bedroom thicker walls please.”

“Alright, alright,” Mulligan had to project his voice to be heard over the next round of laughter. Alex, however, caught Lafayette’s expression— a mix of petulance and frustration, their eyes fixed on Mulligan— and gave his friend a little nudge.

“You alright?” he whispered, and when Lafayette only shrugged noncommittally, Alex pressed, in French this time, “ _if this is going to affect my sleep as well, you ought to give me a word of warning._ ”

This was enough to receive a snort of good humor, Lafayette fondly shaking their head.

“ _I’ll tell you later,_ ” they replied, voice pitched rumbling and low. They gently headbutted Alex’s side in appreciation though. Above them, Mulligan was giving his thanks to the gathered group, well-timed jokes keeping the mood uplifted. He was rather marvelous, Alex found himself thinking. Practically aglow with friendliness and charisma, Mulligan was at the center of a very loving group of people.

“ _See? That’s it,_ ” Lafayette murmured, tone tinged surprisingly forlorn. With a low questioning hum, Alex wove their fingers together and pressed against his friend’s side. But once again, Lafayette didn’t seem keen on explaining, leaving Alex feeling helplessly frustrated by their side. Brain and thoughts churning, Alex completely missed Mulligan’s finale, and only jolted back into action by a friendly shove from John. The crowd was dispersing around them, heading to the back corner of the café where a table full of food has been set up. With a quick but genuine smile, Lafayette inclined their head and pulled Alex along, John falling in beside them. To Alex’s surprise, Angelica joined their line, pressing in elbow-to-elbow with him.

“C’mon then, Alexander Hamilton,” she said, a corner of her lips quirked up. Alex found his gaze fixed on the bit of glitter in her eyelash, fallen from her eye shadow. “Work’s not over yet— there’s still one more person to meet.”

“ _And miles to go before I sleep_.” That earned an _are you kidding me, you nerd_ and simultaneously approving look from Angelica, and Alex counted it as a victory. When Angelica peeled off in a different direction than Lafayette and John though, Alex’s fingers lingered in Lafayette’s. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’m about to change your life.”

Lafayette pulled Alex’s hand up between them and pressed a kiss to his knuckle, before letting Alex loose.

“Go,” they said, nodding to the girl in blue who was clearly waiting for Angelica and Alex, by the now-emptier side of the café. Alex’s expression must have betrayed his remaining worry, for John stepped closer in behind Lafayette, wrapping an arm warmly around their torso, winking reassuringly at Alex.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Alex promised, before turning back to Angelica, who was looking rather pleased. She took his hand. “Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **the gringo go home thing is based on a real overhead conversation! yay! like for real some guy on the bus going "I just don't understand, you really just shouldn't hate on anybody you know?"  
> ** _In the center of attention stood a posh coat and a mousy guy in it, white and getting paler yet_ kind of an oblique les mis reference?? But this isn't meant to be Marius at all don't worry.
> 
> A hint of real plot in this chapter! Comments are truly love.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unapologetic lovesong to Eliza, and some lessons in slang

Eliza was, at the risk of sounding utterly cheesy, _sunshine._ The morning sort, light and effusive and utterly beautiful spreading along the sky— the kind that Alex kind of missed from home. For the past few mornings in Berkeley a smoky fog had dominated the mornings, and the sun had to burn it through in starts and bursts. At first, Alex had been fixated upon Eliza’s simple beauty, but as they spoke, he grew fonder and fonder of, well, everything. The way she ducked her chin and tucked her long black hair behind one ear (only ever on her left side). Her immediately expressive face, telegraphing her utter attention from moment to moment in conversation, making the speaker feel like the center of the world. How she stood in a clean line up and down, her feet almost always turned out in ballet first position.

_“You look thirsty,” Angelica had said in greeting, a teasing smirk on her face. A delightfully sweet blush lit Eliza’s cheeks._

_“Ha ha ha, thank you.” The sardonic twist dissipated from her smile as she turned to greet Alex. “Elizabeth Schuyler, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”_

_“Alex.” A quick bow, but no kiss because Eliza kept her hands folded at her abdomen, fingers tapping lightly in a nervous gesture. “The pleasure is all mine.”_

_“Gotta stay healthily hydrated is what I always say,” Angelica continued in the same singsong voice. Eliza once again flushed red, her lips parting then closing several times as she searched for a reply._

_“I can get you a drink of water…?” Alex offered tentatively. To his confusion, Eliza grew redder, and Angelica tossed her head back in elated laughter._

_“No, it’s really alright,” Eliza quickly said. “With all the people in here, it’d be Omaha Beach trying to get to the drinks table.”_

_“Well, if I have to fight a war for you it’d be worth it.”_

_With a low appreciative whistle, Angelica clasped a friendly hand on Alex and Eliza’s shoulders each._

_“Alright, alright, I’ll get the drinks,” she said, smiling but giving Alex a meaningful glance. “And leave you to it.”_

And the rest, as they said, was history. Trading stories, Alex learned that Eliza, like John, attended Cal. She was tracked for law school, major in Political Science, but her deepest passions were for History. Her manner of speech tended to be more demure to Angelica’s fiery and Peggy’s lively, but the brightness of her eyes and the undisguised awe in the turn of her lips was intoxicating. Alex found himself warmly enthralled, letting people around him guide his motions and gestures absently, so he could give all his attention to Eliza.

Their conversation unfolded as they strolled through the room, picking up a drink here and a bite of dessert there. Alex, of course, with his passion for law, spoke at length about— prompted by the rainbow flag pinned to one wall of the café— _Obergefell v. Hodges_. Eliza prompted his winding speech with well-timed quotes and questions that complicated and problematized some of Alex’s claims without piquing Alex’s ire.

“The pro-marriage interpretation of the critiques are dreadfully vilifying, for the most part,” Eliza mused.

“Which is unnecessary and detrimental to any kind of genuine progress,” Alex groused. “Yes, it’s raining on their parade, but when all you’ve got are corporate floats and straight allies at your parades maybe you’ve got to step back and take a look at what you’re doing! Not to mention all the overseas homonationalist discourse…”

And so it went. Homonationalism turned to pinkwashing, turned to Israel/Palestine, turned to Islamophobia turned to Orientalism.

“I debated going into Public Health,” Eliza confessed. “I had been volunteering at and working with this Asian health organization in Oakland, you see.”

“What made you choose Law instead?” Alex asked. 

“I’ll admit, I probably made my decision based on an over-simplistic view of the matter.” When Eliza laughed in embarrassment, Alex wanted to trace the pink flush at her cheeks. “But my logic went something like this: all med students learn to heal. Not to say that there is no corruption in the medical field—”

“No corruption, no unequal accessibility, no neoliberal administrative practices,” Alex couldn’t help but jump in, voice heavy with sarcasm. Eliza nodded with a grimace and continued.

“—but medicine is still a practical skillset, you know? There is no shortage of trained medical personnel here, and as long as there are changes to the system, working on redistributing services to benefit marginalized communities, creating culturally appropriate education for the doctors, so on and so forth, things will be for the better. Law, on the other hand, seemed _rife_ with corruption. If I can learn the trade and be a socially aware lawyer, I can do a lot of good, I think. I hope.”

“That’s really rather brilliant,” Alex said, blinking. “Your ambitions totally turn the money-grubbing stereotypes of doctors and lawyers both on their head.”

“Doesn’t do Chinese American representation any favors though,” Eliza replied dryly. “Maybe I should become an actress or a dancer or a singer, instead.”

“All of the above.” Alex shrugged, then grinned. “Go full Broadway.”

That adorably obvious blush again. “Only if you be the Danny to my Sandy.”

“Maybe I want to be Rizzo.” 

Eliza tossed her head back in laughter, fixed her hair (on the left side). Impulsively, Alex reached out and caressed the dangling earring— thin gold chains the length of Eliza’s elegant neck, their bottoms almost brushing her shoulder. 

“This is beautiful.”

“My parents gave them to me,” she said softly, “on the day they got me. They found this pair at a garage sale, at the bottom of a huge box of rusty odds and ends— said that day, they were lucky and found two precious things in a messy world.”

“It’s true,” Alex murmured. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.” When Alex looked up in surprise, Eliza made a rueful face. “Parents had never liked me being so effeminate— when I came out as completely trans, they kicked me out.”

Alex’s eyes widened in horror, then darkened with anger. But before he could speak, Eliza suddenly swooped in with a hug, pulling him in quick but tight. At Alex’s cheek, she laughed soft and sweet, before brushing a barely-there kiss against the skin.

“The past is really awful, and hurts, but!” She spun to face the room, her arms wide open as if to embrace everybody present. Several people caught her gaze, smiled and waved back at her. Angelica blew her a kiss. “Look around, Alex, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now. All the odds stacked against us, queers of color, immigrants, orphans— but we still live!”

“So many of us are dying, being killed,” Alex couldn’t help but say, and Eliza’s expression turned mournful. Still, though, she smiled again.

“That’s why it’s so political for us to simply _exist_ ,” she said sadly. “We can take further action, sure, lobby and vote and protest and pass laws, but our revolution at its most basic only requires living. It’s an encouragement, and a plea, you know— just say alive, that would be enough.”

“It’s true, what you say, but I don’t want to settle.” At Alex’s words, Eliza took a single breath, and nodded once, as if settling something. “There’s a million things I can do, that I haven’t done— I can help. I can change the world.”

“Change the world? Count me in,” interrupted Mulligan, coming up behind Eliza. “Hey now, why’re y’all looking so solemn in this corner? Isn’t talk of revolution supposed to get you pumped, make you wanna go fight everybody in the world?”

Eliza cracked a smile, lifted to her tiptoes to brush a kiss against Mulligan’s cheek. Alex suddenly had an image of him doing the same thing, and came to the realization that he would only reach Mulligan’s upper lip, at best.

“I’ll fight,” Alex said, “happily. Who? Who can I fight?”

A brief, almost unnoticeable hesitation from Mulligan. “Lafayette seemed a bit down. A good fight ought to cheer ‘em up. Go tell them you despise _Les Mis_ or something.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “I love that book.”

With a dramatic groan, Mulligan slapped a hand to his forehead. “Well fuck, now I gotta keep you two _away_ from each other, before they introduce you to the goddamn musical. I can’t condone another movie night of sobbing and wobbly singing, I just can’t.”

“He is just salty that he missed it,” said Lafayette, materializing behind Alex. They turned to John, who appeared with them. “Was that correct?”

“Yup!” John answered cheerfully, holding a hand out for a high-five. “You get a point! Your turn, Alex. Vocab word of the week is _salty_ — part of speech, definition, use it in a sentence please.”

“Um, adjective, of or related to salt...?”

Miming an X with his hands, John made an incorrect buzzer noise. “Next contestant— Eliza Schuyler!”

Eliza cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, affecting a speaking dignitary. “Salty,” she spoke in an audiobook voice, “adjective, the state of being petulantly upset over a perceived wrong. For example, Thomas still felt a bit salty at being tossed as presentation partner.” 

Angelica, appearing as well, groaned and shoved her smirking sister. “Thomas can go suck a dick, if he still wants to be salty.”

“Thomas can go suck his own dick,” John chimed in, expression deviously unapologetic.

“Thomas _can_ suck his own dick,” Lafayette added on idly. Howls of displeasure arose from John and Angelica at this piece of news, and even Eliza scrunched her nose. Alex, curious, had to ask who this Thomas was.

“ _A dick_ ,” was the collective answer, as everyone broke out in peals of laughter. Lafayette, a wry grin on their lips, slung an arm around Alex’s shoulders.

“He is my friend,” they explained, “and Angelica’s ex-boyfriend. John despises him, Eliza is polite to him but Eliza also poured salt and chili oil into Thomas’ food and drink for the week after he and Angelica argued. Hercules saw him once from afar and said he looks like a douche.”

“He looked like a douche!” Mulligan repeated, throwing his hands in the air. Despite his exasperated tone, his eyes were fond, tinged with relief as he looked at Lafayette. “He was leaning against his mint green Monte Carlo, vaping like there’s no tomorrow. Douche.”

“Dictionary definition douche,” John echoed. “Don’t meet him Alex, you’re better off. And anyways, _ding ding ding_! Eliza gets a point! Her reward is a seat at the _super special, ultra VIP_ dinner table!” 

There was, indeed, a “VIP” dinner table— the unspoken head table that was saved for Mulligan and his closest kin. At the moment, only the Washingtons were seated, talking to each other with fond, intimate smiles. Peggy was flitting from table to table, chatting up a storm with everyone.

“Let’s go let’s go,” Mulligan’s voice boomed as he began ushering the whole group forward. “Grab some food, time to eat!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Homonationalism:** the idea that LGBTQs the world over experience, practice, and are motivated by the same desires, and that their politics are grounded in an understanding that ties 1) the directionality of their love and desire into a stable identity and 2) that stable identity into the grounds from which one speaks and makes political claims. (Jasbir Puar)  
>  **Pinkwashing, Israel/Palestine:** public perception of Israel from an Apartheid settler state to a harmless, liberal, gay-friendly playground by juxtaposing this false image with a portrayal of Palestinian and Arab societies as backwards, repressive and intolerant. (from [Pinkwatching Israel](http://www.pinkwatchingisrael.com/about-us/))
> 
> oh boy, this is a very long day for them all isn't it? It's not over by a long shot either— late night shenanigans and puppy piles ahead.
> 
> Comments are love~!


	8. Have another shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started watching _New Girl_ again, it's SO. GOOD. So have a chapter of gratuitous True American, because this is what I'm about, and there are levels of hilarity for our American historical figures to play this drinking game.

“ _The game is True American!”_

Angelica pulled a huge bottle of gin from her bag with flourish, and the group all cheered. Dragging two boxes of cheap beer from under a bookshelf, John half-shouldered, half-kneed Alex to the ground, commanding him to _Stack, motherfucker, stack!_

“It’s almost Candy Land,” Peggy explained as she started dragging furniture to random positions across the living room floor.

“Except it’s basically not Candy Land,” Eliza interjected, yanking pillows off the top of a shelf and scattering them across the floor. Then she snapped at the whole room, “ _Shoes!_ ” and everyone collectively ripped off their shoes (all except Lafayette, who seemed perpetually shoe-less) and tossed them into the recycling bin at the corner. Alex hastened to comply.

“The floor is lava, and _that_ ,” Angelica said, pointing a manicured nail at the gin bottle with beers stacked around, “is the castle. Those are the pawns, the soldiers of the secret order, and that’s the King of the Castle.”

“Revolution clause!” Lafayette suddenly yelled, throwing a taffeta square of the French flag at the castle. But John was too quick, batting the square away before it could touch the bottle. Lafayette and Angelica booed while everyone else cheered.

“It’s Alex’s first time, let’s keep it simple y’all— _no_ clauses!” Then John turned an aside to Alex. “I’m totally lying, you’d love the Revolution clause, but you’d also kick all our asses and I’m not ready for that kind of humiliation on your first game y’know? So I’m stacking the odds against you fam, you better watch your back.”

“But what the hell are the rules?” Alex hissed, then jumped when Peggy whooped, and frisbeed a stray envelope into a corner.

“Clinton rules!” she declared. “Pick your interns!”

Eliza suddenly appeared at Alex’s side and slapped her whole palm against the side of his face. Peggy took a running jump at Lafayette and tackled them to the ground before Angelica’s outstretched hand could touch them. John wiggled his eyebrows at Angelica and made a series of complicated hand gestures. Then, in a somewhat smooth motion, John bounced a can of beer up to Alex.

“Shotgun tipoff baby, let’s go let’s go.”

A metal letter opener appeared in Alex’s other hand and, well, there was really only one thing left to do. The cheers were deafening as he ripped a hole at the bottom of the can and guzzled the whole thing.

“One, two, three, four,” Lafayette tipped their head back and shouted, “JFK!”

Everyone else, “ _FDR!_ ”

And it began. 

* * *

 

“William McKinley, asshole, take two shots!” John yelled. Peggy, perched on an upended stool behind him, whistled sharply and chucked a long cane, pierced on the end with an empty beer can, at Lafayette, who caught it and shouted triumph.

“ _Bloody bloody Andrew Jackson!_ ” They waved the staff through the air as John groaned, and downed the two shots of his own making, then one more that Angelica hands him. 

“Cost of freedom?!” Eliza shouted, tossing an empty beer can onto the ground with great relish. A flurry of cusses and fast muttered calculations, but Alex got there first.

“$67.73!”

Jumping up and down in excited screaming, Eliza hopped from pillow to table to bench, all the way to the center of the room. She grabbed at the rapidly depleting pile of beers and tossed every person a can, all while yelling, “the only thing we have to fear—”

“— _is fear itself!_ ”

* * *

 

“ _Angel Island_!” Lafayette announced.

“I’ve got six extra letters!” Alex tapped insistently on his slip of paper.

“I got double S’s!” John.

“Two silent h’s and a silent j, bitch, I win!” Peggy enthusiastically fist-pumped the air. “Strip, John Laurens, gimme them abs.”

* * *

 

“My name is Eli Whitney and I invented the cotton gin!”

“ _Gin! Gin! Gin! Gin!_ ”

* * *

“ _Alex_ you were supposed to be on my _team_ ,” John whined, one hand clutching at his bare chest and the other wrapped around a beer. Lafayette cackled from Alex’s back, where they were wrapped around Alex’s shoulders and waist as Alex slid across the floor on two pillows with terrific focus.

“Big corporations, baby,” Lafayette hooted, sockless toes wiggling haughtily. “We win every time.”

“ _Unioniiiiiiize_!” Angelica howled, and everybody began to chant, _People’s Party! People’s Party!_ as they threw things at Alex and Lafayette.

They went down in a hail of pillows, beer cans, and shirts.

* * *

“You started without me?” Mulligan exclaimed. A chorus of mixed apologies and baiting shouts.

“City of Angels!” Eliza suddenly said, and Angelica’s head snapped up. Brandishing a beaten, rumpled Dodger’s cap, Eliza tossed it to the top of a bookcase. “ _Water ho!_ ”

Angelica immediately started for it, but Mulligan, immune at entry, charged right across the lava and hoisted her onto his shoulder, carrying her atop the coffee table with victorious whooping.

“Owens River Valley wins!” he crowed, tipping his head back and letting Angelica tip a bottle of vodka into his mouth.

“ _Power to the people_!” everybody else replied.

* * *

“1776!”

“New York City!”

John began crooning Chris Brown to a topless Angelica, and everybody drank.

* * *

“‘06, ‘06!” 

“ _San Francisco earthquake_!”

“You can’t do that, Eliza!” Alex wailed as Eliza ruthlessly shook the chair he was on, attempting to tip him to the ground.

“Down with lack of construction safety codes!” Eliza declared cheerfully, until Peggy, in uniformly yellow underclothes, slapped Alex’s outstretched hand.

“44 O’Shaughnessy!” Everybody cheered as she pointed a triumphant finger at Eliza, who goes owl-eyed. Having managed to stay on his chair, Alex smugly handed the half-empty gin to Eliza. “Hetch Hetchy’s about to _flood_!”

“John Muir, John Muir!” Eliza cried, knocking back a swig while simultaneously kicking off her jeans from underneath the tulle tutu she had gotten to don during the Bank Run. Mulligan skidded to her side and snatched the bottle.

“ _Sierra Club!_ ” Mulligan howled, and everybody obediently held out shot glasses to be topped off.

* * *

“ _Fuck,_ Trail of Tears??”

Mulligan, solemnly, “raise a glass.”

* * *

The Washingtons walked in to Alex on the table, flat on his back and naked except for a pair of Lafayette’s tights, Angelica poised above him, whiskey bottle in hand. 

“We just wanted to come say goodnight,” George said, amused. Lafayette clambered off the writing desk and unraveled the scarf chain from their ankle, yelling for the creed of _Manifest Destiny!_ as they jumped across the lava and into George’s patiently waiting arms.

“That way’s _north_ ,” John yelled at Lafayette. 

“Great Migration then,” Lafayette hissed back.

“You wanna kick us off?” Peggy asked Martha, smiling toothily as she swayed back and forth on her cushion. Martha laughed, and blew them all a kiss.

Then she proclaimed, “ _Whiskey Rebellion!_ ”

The Washingtons left with a kiss each on Lafayette’s cheeks, and it took a whole seven seconds before Alex started to choke on the whiskey. 

* * *

“Guns!” Lafayette yelled.

“And _ships_ ,” answered Mulligan, John, and Alex.

“ _Gunboats_ ,” sniggered the Schuyler Sisters.

“Battle of Yorktown!” John hollered as Mulligan and Alex chanted _U.S.A.! U.S.A.!_ Angelica took a daring leap onto the table Alex stood on, standing chest-to-chest with him.

“Perry rules, amateur!” Eliza and Peggy joined their sister in battle formation, and goosed Alex right off the table. “ _Get off the island or seventy-three shots!_ ”

“I’ll take the shots!” Alex yelled from the ground, before he was smothered with a cushion by Mulligan.

“You will _literally_ die, just surrender already.”

* * *

“ _Rochambeau_!”

Scissors won, the rocks and papers down a shot. Lafayette looked out the window and saluted with tears in their eyes.

* * *

The end of the game was an hour before sunrise, and when the light poked through the window, Mulligan hauled himself up from the pile of sleeping bodies, cushions, and empty beer cans with a groan.

“Are you for real?” muttered Angelica from where her face was planted into a cushion, left there after Mulligan extracted his arm-pillow. “You’re going to work?”

“Adult life can’t stop, won’t stop,” was the answer, though Mulligan sounded suspiciously mournful and close to tears. But Angelica was already passed out again, and didn’t reply.

“Take a break,” Eliza whispered from where she was curled on the ground. An empty pitcher was on the ground beside her, and Mulligan had to applaud the little lady for staying hydrated. His own head wasn’t pounding as bad as it probably could have been, and he gave himself a mental pat on the back as well.

“Can’t, love, it’s a Monday.” With a soft snap and a light shove, Mulligan woke John, who blinked up with a sorry grimace. “Dude, you’ve got class in two hours, just letting you know.”

Cracking his neck, John yawned widely. “It’s just Spanish, I can miss a… day…” That’s when he noticed Alex’s head on his chest. Alex’s hair was down, curling softly around his cheeks and neck, and he was still mostly naked from last night, though someone had folded Lafayette’s quilt over him at some point. John’s breath stuttered and his entire body went still, mouth gaping. Mulligan watched from where he was pulling on a shirt, amused.

“You know you gotta breathe at some—”

But before Mulligan could finish, Alex started awake, his fingers gripping at John’s shirt and panic evident in his eyes. Shocked into action, John’s hands shot out and gripped Alex’s shoulder. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, as Alex’s hands fluttered about John’s chest, then neck. Even from where he stood, Mulligan could see that Alex’s fingers were trembling as they pressed into John's pulse point.

“Hey, hey, you’re alright,” John comforted, keeping his voice soft. Mulligan stepped closer and dropped to his knees until he was level with Alex, but kept his hands visible and off. John’s grip on Alex was tough, but Mulligan could see Alex was leaning heavily into it.

There was a blurriness to Alex’s gaze that led Mulligan to ask, “do you know where you are?”

It was like the question snapped something, and Alex blinked. His entirely back bowed and he slumped forward, John gladly gathering him up into a hug. One of Alex’s hands found Mulligan’s, and Mulligan gripped it tight and warm.

“Sorry, sorry,” Alex murmured into John’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Shh, I know, I know,” John comforted, rubbing his back. He traded worried looks with Mulligan. “Are you alright now? Do you need anything?”

“It’s just—” Alex broke off, taking a moment to breathe. Feeling a touch on his ankle, Mulligan glanced down at Eliza’s concerned expression. Shaking his head mutely, Mulligan gently pressed his thumbs firmly into Alex’s palm, massaging the tense muscles and tendons. A shudder went through Alex’s entire body, and he sighed before speaking again. “I was twelve when my mother died. She was, um, she was holding me. We were sick and she was holding me. One morning I wake up and she wasn’t breathing anymore and you weren't moving at all and—”

“I’m _so sorry._ ” John’s embrace got tighter, fingers scrambling frantically to wrap the quilt around Alex while keeping Alex in his grip. “I won’t do it again, I swear—”

“You didn’t mean to, it’s fine—”

Shuffling, and Eliza got up, pressing kisses to Alex and John’s heads.

“I’ll go make coffee for everyone,” she whispered. “Love you.”

After she left, Alex tugged Mulligan a bit closer, until the three of them were draped across each other. The sun was slowly warming the room, and after a couple of minutes, Alex’s trembling subsisted.

“You good?” Mulligan rumbled. Alex lifted his head and nodded with a sheepish smile. “Sweet, because it’s not that I want to leave, of course not. I just suddenly remembered what happened last time Eliza tried to make coffee, and I really ought to go downstairs and help.”

“Before she breaks another espresso machine,” John agreed. “Go, go, go, save _all_ of us from a coffee-less hell of a hungover morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM, I've been planning this moment of angst since like, chapter three, oops. You're welcome.
> 
> TRUE AMERICAN NOTES  
> (I believe part of the fun is the apparent nonsensicalness of it all— but that being said, everything I wrote is a reference.)
> 
> *William McKinley was shot twice. Andrew Jackson beat his own would-be assassin with a cane.  
> *Cost of freedom = cost of all the liquor  
> *Angel Island is the West Coast immigration center, and they give weird spelling of names. The weirder the more victorious.  
> *People's Party = Populists, Teddy Roosevelt's time, down with big corporations.  
> *Los Angeles stole the entire Owens River to develop. I'm serious.  
> *"1776, New York City, pardon me"— John's singing "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)." Sorry tis a really lame reference.  
> *Because of the Gold Rush in '49, California had a huge population boom, especially SF, and so building codes were crappy and the earthquake was really bad so the whole city was basically destroyed, in the earthquake and subsequent fire. Because of this, civic reaction pushed for the damming of the river in Hetch Hetchy valley, which was in National Park. John Muir, famous naturalist and founder (member??) of the Sierra Club, tried to fight it but didn't succeed.  
> *Manifest Destiny, expand West no matter what! Great Migration is when all the white dudes went to fight in WWI, black population collectively moved north to take up all the job openings.  
> *Yes, History of Japan reference, but also Gunboat Diplomacy, Commodore Perry, he fired 73 blank shots from cannons to celebrate Independence Day.  
> *Rochambeau is what we say in California when we play Rock Paper Scissors? I heard this isn't the case for everywhere else??
> 
> END of nerding out. Leave a comment, tell me what else you wanna see??


End file.
